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Background of the Trade Union Movement in India

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The trade union movement started in India due to the state intervention for the demand of improved working conditions. The economic reforms` package based on privatization, liberalization and austerity measures can be viewed as providing some kind of favourable environment for the trade unions in the public sector to engage in greater industrial disputes, but what is being observed is that there is increasing dissension or fragmentation within the trade union movement itself. Though, Trade Union movement emerged due to the need of improved working conditions of the working class in India, there has also been a decline in trade union activities over the years.
The Trade Union is a continuous demand of the wage earners for the purpose of maintaining or improving the working conditions. Political motivations and the ideologies influenced the Indian trade`s union movement and were in turn influenced by its increased strength. The twin aspects of the Indian Trade Union Movement, labours organization for industrial bargaining and its ideological orientation were analyzed with the political colour. The aspects of the Trade Unions were scanned in the wider background of the nationalists struggle against Imperialism. The present study is an attempt at understanding the theories of the trade union movement, of the organized sector in the Public Sector Units (PSU), against privatization in India. The issues of framing and bargaining in the collective behaviour literature have been incorporated into the study. The historical-comparative approach has been used in terms of historically analyzing the starting of trade unions in India and comparing the activities of trade unions across different states in India, more so because the State governments as well as the trade unions have different political affiliations. There is simultaneous dissension or fragmentation within the trade union movement itself.
Background of the Trade Union Movement
The first ever demand for the regulations of the workings conditions of the workers in the Indians factories came from the Lancashire textile capitalist lobby. They thought that the emergence of a competitive rival in the Indian textile industry under favourable conditions would deteriorate their position. Hence they demanded the appointment of a commission for an investigation into the factory condition and also to the working condition of the labours. The first commission was appointed in the year 1875, although the First Factory Act was not passed before1881. The Act prohibited the employment of the children under the age of 7. The Act also limited the working hours of the children below the age of 12 years. Similar circumstances resulted in the enactment of the factory acts for the jute industry in 1909 and 1911.

This gave impetus to the trade union movement in British India got an impetus when Bombay Mill Hands Association ...